Popular Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a rising star in the Democratic Party, announced today he will run for the US Senate in New Jersey.
The 44-year-old Democrat is seeking a seat left vacant by the death on Monday of the oldest US senator, Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat.
A special election to fill the seat has been set for October 16 by Republican Governor Chris Christie, who has convened party primaries for August 13.
"I'm running because I believe that people who care can find solutions to even the most difficult challenges," Booker said, promising "promising pragmatism over partisanship."
He spoke at a news conference in Newark, the crime-ridden, trouble plagued New Jersey city that Booker has tried to turn around since being elected mayor in 2006.
"I understand the skepticism people have about politics. But I reject that attitude."
Booker had already planned to run in the 2014 mid-term elections, and had raised $1.9 million by the end of the last reporting period in March, according to electronic filings.
He is considered an early frontrunner in a Democratic primary race against Representative Rush Holt, who had just under USD 800,000 in campaign coffers in March.
Frank Pallone, a Democratic congressman with strong support from unions, is also expected to enter the contest. He had USD 3.7 million on hand by the end of March.
Democrats have only a five seat majority in the 100-seat US Senate, ensuring the race will be a fiercely contested prelude to the mid-term elections, when 35 of the chamber's seats will be up for grabs.
With nearly 1.4 million Twitter followers to his name, Booker has often been in the public eye as an activist mayor with a flair for drama.
Last year, he made headlines by rescuing a woman from a burning house, and in 1999 drew attention with a 10-day hunger strike to protest drug smuggling.
He lived in a motor home the following year, parking it on the city's most drug-infested corners to encourage fellow residents and businesses to fight against crime and drug dealing.
A former All-American football player, he has been nicknamed "The Savior of Newark" for his efforts targeting inner-city problems.
Booker was class president at Stanford University, earned a law degree from Yale University and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University in Britain.
